1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to the field of water treatment, and in its preferred embodiments more specifically relates to self-contained, portable, automated apparatus and methods for treating water to remove various types of contaminants to produce potable water.
2. Description of the Related Art
In much of the world, the lack of clean, safe drinking water is a major problem, and the need for reliable sources of potable water is one of the most important factors in the survival of entire populations. Even when water is available it is very likely to be contaminated and unsafe for use. Common contaminants include entrained large debris, entrained small particle debris, suspended solids, salts, oils, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other chemicals, as well as living organisms and other pathogens. Different sources of water that require treatment before it can be safely used can include various ones of these common contaminants, or may include all of them. The substantial variation in the contaminants found in different water sources has made the design of treatment systems known and used in the prior art either a case-by-case process or a one-fits-all process. A treatment system designed and constructed with a few treatment modules to remove only selected contaminants reflective of the anticipated raw water source cannot effectively treat water in the event that an additional contaminant is introduced to the source water, either permanently or intermittently, such as when a natural or man-made disaster occurs that changes the contaminants in the source water. A one-fits-all treatment system designed to treat source water for the removal of all possible contaminants, whether actually present or not, can be considerably more costly to construct, operate and maintain than a system that treats only for contaminants actually present.
Portability and interchangeability of treatment system apparatus is also a problem that is detrimental to the goal of making safe drinking water more readily available. Portable water treatment systems are needed for a wide variety of different scenarios and geographic locations where the source water is of unknown or variable quality. Portable water treatments systems commonly need to be deployed as part of a disaster relief response. For example, conventional water treatment systems located in the New Orleans area, which were intended to treat fresh water from the Mississippi River or local lakes, were incapable of treating the contaminated mixture of fresh and salt water, debris, oil, and chemicals in the source water supply immediately following Hurricane Katrina. Other types of portable treatment systems are needed to provide adequate homeland security responses, such as responding to a chemical or biological terrorist attack which contaminates domestic fresh water sources. The military, mining companies, and petroleum exploration and production companies also need portable treatment systems when deploying to remote areas lacking existing water treatment infrastructure in order to provide potable water for its personnel. Portable treatment systems can also provide an effective source of potable water in underdeveloped countries lacking adequate water treatment infrastructure for their people.
Especially in underdeveloped countries and in remote areas anywhere, transporting, setting up, operating, and maintaining water conventional treatment equipment and installations can be difficult, and sometimes impossible. Operation and maintenance of conventional equipment and systems often requires trained personnel, who may not be available or may be unreliable.
Environmental factors where water treatment equipment is located, or needed, can also present significant difficulties, both in terms of equipment operating parameters and in terms of equipment maintenance and protection. For example, in high temperature locations the ambient temperature may be too high for equipment to operate for more than short periods without damage. In very humid locations, condensation can damage equipment components, including but not limited to electrical and control devices. Salt air can create and accelerate corrosion problems that interfere with operation and shorten the useable life of treatment equipment.
There have been a number of attempts to develop portable self-contained water purification systems to produce potable water in the past for specific scenarios and geographic locations. The success of such prior portable systems has been limited. The U.S. military has sought to develop mobile water treatment systems for use with deployed military units; however, such units have encountered deficiencies in operation and in being able to successfully remove a wide variety of contaminants. Others have sought to develop water purification systems that produce potable water from virtually any raw water source using a variety of different inline treatment processes which remain in operation regardless of the need for all the treatment process steps. Yet the problems described hereinabove have not been fully addressed in the prior art, and there remains an unfulfilled need for a water treatment system, including apparatus and methods of operating, that are readily portable, protected against harsh environments, highly effective in contaminant removal, fully automatic in operation, and automatically subjects source water to the treatment steps appropriate for removing contaminants present in the source water, and automatically bypasses treatment steps unnecessary for production of clean, safe, potable water.
The present invention, which addresses and fills the needs outlined above and overcomes the deficiencies of the prior art, will be described below, with reference to the accompanying drawing figures and illustrations.